President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

ANKARA, August 5. /TASS/. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pointed to the big contribution made by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to patching up relations between Moscow and Ankara.

"When we had problems in our relations, there were numerous talks between (Nazarbayev) and Russian President Vladimir Putin," Erdogan told a joint news conference with Kazakhstan’s leader. "He exerted efforts to restore our relations and made a big contribution to reestablishing concord between us."

Erdogan recalled "that he will hold talks with Putin in St. Petersburg," thanks to which the bilateral relations "will return to their previous level."

For his part, Nazarbayev drew attention to the importance of developing relations with Russia saying that Kazakhstan and Turkey "have similar views on relations with Russia." He added that Kazakhstan "supports Turkey’s involvement in the work of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)." "I invite President Erdogan to cooperate in this area. We have many important events beginning from China and along the entire length of the Great Silk Road, which are impossible without Turkey," Nazarbayev said.